DAVID MACENULTY

David MacEnulty has been teaching chess to adults and children for more than twenty-five years and has been one of the most impactful scholastic chess coaches in the USA over that period.

David began his chess-teaching career with Chess-in-the-Schools, a non-profit foundation that sends chess teachers to schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Later, David became the first full-time New York City public school teacher to teach chess as an academic subject.

Working in a large elementary school in the South Bronx, his team won first place trophies at the New York City Scholastic Chess Tournament for four consecutive years, and became one of the top five elementary chess teams in the USA. From 1994 to 1997, his students won more than 500 individual and team trophies. These achievements are made all the more remarkable by the fact that his school, Community Elementary School 70, was located in the poorest Congressional District in the country, and its children come from the two highest crime precincts in the Bronx.

David’s work and results in the South Bronx inspired the critically acclaimed movie Knights of the South Bronx based on the true account of his experiences, and of his students’ achievements.

David has since taught at many schools and given lectures across the United States and around the World on chess related topics. For the past several years he has been chess coach at the Dalton school in New York City, and over that time Dalton students and chess teams have won scores of State and National Championships across all age groups.

David and his teams have been featured on CBS and CNN, and in many newspaper and magazine articles, both in United States and abroad. He won the prestigious Chess Educator of the Year award from the University of Texas at Dallas, was honored with a career achievement award by the U.S. Chess Federation, and received the Lives That Make a Difference award from A & E Television.

David has authored several books on chess including “The Chess Kid Book of Tactics”, “The Chess Kid Book of Checkmate”, “The Chess Kid Book of King and Pawn Endgame”, and “How to beat your kids at Chess”.

In 2000, Irish America Magazine honored David as one of the "Top 100 Irish Americans".